


a chance with someone like you

by whitenoise17



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, I'll update the tags with each chapter, Kissing, Patrolling, Post-Season/Series 03, The Bronze (BtVS), because i didn't know what else to call this, demon slayage, i invented a new demon for this lol sorry to the lore, i love that the bronze is tagged like a character, possibly too much fashion description, title from "electric blue" by icehouse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29303517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitenoise17/pseuds/whitenoise17
Summary: Buffy had sort of assumed, after graduation, that Cordelia would be glad to never see her again. She was sure Cordelia thought the same of her, even though that wasn’t quite true. But then a supposedly slow night on patrol leads Buffy to Cordelia's house.
Relationships: Cordelia Chase/Buffy Summers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

It was supposed to be a boring night on patrol.

And for the first three cemeteries, it was. Buffy had tried to convince Giles she could skip patrolling tonight, honestly, because summers were always quieter in Sunnydale, and he hadn’t found anything in his books that she needed to worry about, and didn’t he remember that she was eighteen years old with a life to be living?

He didn’t, apparently, because here Buffy is in the fourth cemetery on her nightly tour, the one where all the rich and important people get to be buried.

The night stretches on, hot and buzzing with insects hiding in the untrimmed grasses. You’d think Sunnydale’s premiere graveyard real estate would be better taken care of, Buffy thinks, as she wanders between the ornate mausoleums and the pretentious marble sculptures.

No vampires in sight.

Sometimes, on late June nights like this one, a faint breeze starts up, and Buffy can smell the salt air blowing in from the sea.

She starts to drift off, thinking idly about weekend plans, going to the beach with Xander and Willow and Oz and, well, probably not Cordelia. She hasn’t seen all her friends together since graduation day, when they’d blown up the high school and then finally checked staying at the Bronze until closing time off their bucket lists.

All things considered, it had been a pretty good day. Minus Angel leaving and the Faith-related fallout and the mayor trying to kill everyone, of course.

These things happen in a town like Sunnydale.

As do giant demons with sharp claws and blindingly bright eyes attacking you while you’re trying to reminisce on good times.

Buffy silently thanks her Slayer reflexes as she instinctively dodges the first hit, but they don't save her from the second one. She’s sent sprawling across some lady with more money than taste’s grave, from which position she kicks the demon hard in the stomach before springing back to her feet.

Her stake isn’t going to do her much good against whatever kind of demon this is, so she tosses it aside and throws a punch at the demon’s ribs.

For once, she’s glad to be so short, because the moonlight, intensified a thousand times by the thing’s eyes, goes right over her head. She tries to trip her opponent, but miscalculates slightly and pulls off nothing more than a kick to its shins. Her next move is much more effective. Those laser eyes must be a weakness as well as a strength, because flinging dirt into them sure seems to slow the demon down.

Too bad Buffy didn’t prepare any dirt-related puns for the occasion.

The demon decides that it’s done fighting and takes off running towards a residential area. Maybe it’s confused by the sudden lack of vision, or else it hopes Buffy wouldn’t follow. Either way, the thing is out of luck; she can run almost as fast, and she knows her way around Sunnydale a lot better.

The chase lasts a few blocks, each of them with higher real estate values than the one before. In a neighborhood full of very nice houses that the Summers family wouldn’t have been able to afford even before the divorce, the demon makes a poor decision and tries to cut through a well-manicured lawn still damp from its evening watering.

Buffy corners it between her and the house. She’ll be able to catch it long before it darts to either side, and there’s no way up the tall, smooth-barked trees gracefully framing the doorway.

She looks around for something she can use to kill this thing; there’s not exactly an abundance of options. Buffy should know by now: she always regrets packing light.

The demon rushes her, and they start brawling again. The demon still isn’t quite back at its full potential, but it’s recovering steadily. Buffy gets thrown against the side of the house. She retaliates with a slash at the demon’s eyes, and it shrieks loudly. Buffy ducks behind one of the trees, and the demon delivers a powerful punch to the trunk. A branch falls, crashing onto the roof of the house. A figure appears in a second floor window, and Buffy curses under her breath. Whoever lives here is not going to be pleased with her.

Why don’t they ever blame the demons for disturbing the peace?

Buffy kickflips off the side of the house and slams her boot into the demon’s skull on her way down. Sadly, blunt force trauma doesn’t seem to be the way to kill this thing. She starts devising a plan: lure it back towards her home, grab a weapon, kill it… the details might need a little work.

She doesn’t have time to figure them out, because whoever lives here is opening the window. Buffy briefly considers hiding behind the tree again, but she can’t let the demon get away again. If she can fight demons every night, surely she can handle briefly getting yelled at. Right?

“Oh my god. Buffy? What are you doing on my lawn?” a familiar voice rings out. Cordelia Chase is leaning out of the window, clad in a button-down shirt with her hair curled and makeup on.

“Fighting a demon, thank you for asking.” Buffy supposes she shouldn’t be too surprised. Cordelia has to live somewhere, after all, and of course it’d be this part of town. “Don’t look at its eyes!” she warns, just in case. She doesn’t want to be held responsible for Cordelia going blind (again).

“Watch out!” Cordelia calls as the demon swings at Buffy’s head. “Just kill it already!”

“Wow, I never would have thought of that without your help,” Buffy snipes back. “If you can spot a weapon from up there, let me know. Otherwise, shut up and let me fight.”

Cordelia sighs dramatically and disappears from the window. Buffy rolls her eyes and gets back to the figuring-out-a-plan thing, plus keeping up the fighting-for-her-life thing.

Sharp metal whistles past her ear from above. Buffy looks down to see an ax clatter to the ground, then back up to the window that Cordelia is once again leaning out of.

“What the hell was that?” she shouts, grabbing the ax and swinging it into the demon’s shoulder.

“A weapon. I mean, you could’ve asked, but—” Cordelia is cut off by Buffy lopping off the demon’s head. It bounces twice and then settles on the lawn. Buffy lights a match and touches it to the corpse, hoping that it’s one of the demon species that disintegrates when burned.

The body lights up, briefly blazing green, and then bursts into a pile of ash.

Now that that’s done, Buffy turns to leave Cordelia’s house (well, lawn).

“Wait! Buffy,” Cordelia shouts after her.

Buffy turns to look at her, wondering why Cordelia would call her back.

She’d sort of assumed, after graduation, that Cordelia would be glad to never see her again. She was sure Cordelia thought the same of her, even though that wasn’t quite true.

“I was just getting ready for the Bronze. Are you going tonight?” Cordelia asks.

“Actually, Cordy, it’s been a long night already. I was just going to head home…” Buffy trails off.

“Already?” Cordelia says in disbelief. “You should come with me. It’ll be, you know, fun.”

“I should really—” Buffy cuts herself off, looks down at her grave-dirt-covered shoes. “Sure.”

“You’re going to have to borrow some of my clothes, though. I’m not going to be seen with you looking like that.”

Buffy shakes her head, laughing to herself. Fair enough—she’s wearing a white tank top that’s worse for wear from all the fighting in the dirt and baggy sweatpants that she’s pretty sure she didn’t even buy. Plus the grave dirt shoes.

For all that’s changed since she first came to Sunnydale, she can always count on Cordelia to tell it like it is.

“The front door’s locked, but I can come down and let you in,” Cordelia says from somewhere out of the window frame.

Not one to miss a chance to show off, Buffy instead uses the tree outside Cordelia’s window for enough leverage to vault herself into the air and catch hold of Cordelia’s window frame. She finishes with a neat somersault-esque roll through the window.

All of a sudden, she’s standing in the middle of Cordelia’s bedroom, a place she now realizes she’s never been. The walls are painted a pinkish-purple color; the nightstands and dresser are cleared; the off-white carpet is bare, save for a pile of clothes and some scattered, half-full cardboard boxes. Buffy feels awkward, out of place.

Cordelia raises an eyebrow at Buffy as she goes to close the window.

“Or you could just do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coffy supremacy <3
> 
> i'm half-to-a-third-of-the-way done with the second chapter of this fic, but i don't have a specific upload date in mind. as the tags say, i'm planning on four chapters, and i'll update the tags with each. kudos are very appreciated, and comments even more so!


	2. Chapter 2

Cordelia paws through her closet, trying to find a dress for Buffy. Her own going-out outfit hangs on her doorknob: a short, simple, sleeveless, high-necked black dress. She’s decided to wear it with knee-high white vinyl sock boots, and she’s decided to look great.

As for Buffy… Cordelia pulls a few dresses out of the closet and inspects each of them in turn. She watches out of the corner of her eye as Buffy perches awkwardly on the edge of Cordelia’s bed.

“You could at least brush your hair while I look through these,” Cordelia says, gesturing towards her vanity. “Maybe some makeup, too.”

Buffy rolls her eyes, as she always does, but she sits at the vanity and starts brushing out her hair.

It’s strange, Cordelia thinks, to see Buffy Summers sitting in her bedroom. She rarely, if ever, brought anyone from high school over to her house. It felt too personal, somehow, and Cordelia was never really into “personal.”

Plus, introducing her friends to her father and her stepmother is Cordelia’s idea of a nightmare. And that was before the whole tax evasion scandal.

Cordelia reaches into the very back of her closet and unearths a tissue-thin white wrap dress complete with a short circle shirt and cap sleeves. She tosses it onto the bed and digs out a pair of strappy black heels that she thinks will fit Buffy.

“How’s the hair?” Buffy asks. She’s brushed it out nicely and touched up her makeup.

If Cordelia’s being honest, Buffy looks beautiful.

If Cordelia’s being even more honest, she always does.

“Well, it no longer looks like birds might mistake it for their nests, so I’d say… better. Try the outfit on.”

Ever so carefully, Buffy picks up the dress Cordelia chose for her and turns towards the wall, pulling her top up and over her shoulders, revealing her well-toned back muscles along with a black sports bra.

Cordelia abruptly turns towards the opposite wall, not sure why her face starts heating up as she looks away from Buffy. She starts getting changed herself, taking her belt off and tossing it vaguely in the direction of her laundry pile. She should clean that up, she thinks. But what does it really matter, when there’s less than a month before this house is no longer hers?

No, she’s not going to think about that tonight. Not losing the house, not her parent’s upcoming hearing, and certainly not how she has no idea where to go or what to do next.

Tonight is about having fun.

Cordelia untucks her pale-pink shirt and starts to unbutton it. She sheds it onto the ever-growing laundry pile and unzips her jeans, tugging them down past her hips, then her thighs, then her calves and tossing them aside.

And then she’s standing there, wearing nothing but her matching set of lacy black bra and underwear.

Before she has the chance to reach for the hanger holding her dress, Buffy says her name, quiet and questioning, and Cordelia turns around.

Buffy is in the process of putting on the dress Cordelia chose for her, but somewhere along the way the tie at the waist got horribly tangled. Buffy gestures to the knotted strings with one hand, holding the front of the dress closed with the other.

Something in the room’s energy shifts when Cordelia turns around, something indescribable, and she feels a pit start to form at the bottom of her stomach. It’s what always happens when Cordelia feels out of control; her life is pretty much designed around feeling this way as little as possible.

So Cordelia handles it the only way she knows how: forced confidence. She strides across the room in her underwear, pretending that she’s entirely comfortable with her lack of clothing this close to Buffy Summers, of all people.

After a brief fumble, Cordelia manages to untangle the offending knot. She ties the dress for Buffy, figuring that since she’s already there, she might as well finish the job.

Cordelia steps back, hands on Buffy’s shoulders, to admire her work. Buffy blushes a little, tucking her hair behind her ears on both sides, and the color makes her look even better.

“Everything look okay?” she asks, as if she genuinely cares what Cordelia thinks.

“You look—Buffy, you look great,” Cordelia says. Buffy narrows her eyes, like maybe this is an elaborate joke Cordelia’s playing on her. “I mean it.”

Buffy smiles, that shy, genuine one she usually reserved for Angel. “Thanks, Cordelia. You look great, too.”

“I actually think this might be a little bit too slutty, even for the Bronze.”

“Oh, right.” Buffy facepalms exaggeratedly and laughs a little. “Although some of the guys there might appreciate it. I know I would. I mean, if I was a guy. I mean, not that girls can’t, you know, appreciate other girls… I’m going to stop talking now.”

“I should finish getting dressed,” Cordelia says, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t turn around. She stands still, so close to Buffy that she can almost feel the heat coming off her skin.

Without consciously deciding to, Cordelia leans in towards Buffy, infinitesimally and almost painfully slow.

She expects Buffy to pull back, to move away, and so Cordelia is surprised when their lips actually touch. The contact is gentle at first, barely even there at all, just the brush of skin against skin. 

And then Buffy brings her hand up to the back of Cordelia’s neck and pulls her in closer.

And then Cordelia Chase and Buffy Summers are kissing, and Cordelia has no idea how that happened.

Cordelia parts Buffy’s lips with her tongue, and Buffy kisses back almost aggressively. A soft sound, half-moan and half-sigh, escapes Cordelia as Buffy takes her bottom lip between her teeth and applies just the right amount of pressure.

Cordelia presses up against Buffy, one hand on the small of her back and the other mirroring Buffy’s own hand on the back of Cordelia’s neck. In return, Buffy tangles her free hand in Cordelia’s hair and pulls her even closer.

Cordelia reaches for the tie on Buffy’s dress and pulls it free, letting the fabric fall to the floor. Buffy isn’t wearing anything fancy underneath, just a sports bra and comfortable underwear. Still, Cordelia takes a moment just to look at her. 

She takes in Buffy’s body, well-toned from all that Slayer stuff. Cordelia looks at the curve of her breasts the way she’s never let herself look before.

Buffy pulls her back in and kisses her hard, moving her backwards towards the bed.

“The door,” Cordelia gasps between kisses. “We should lock the door.”

Buffy changes their course, pushing Cordelia towards the door instead of the bed in an awkward near-stumble, neither of them willing to stop touching the other. Cordelia trips over one of the boxes on the floor and almost wipes out, feet losing traction on the floor.

Buffy catches her, arms around her like they were dancing. She holds Cordelia there for a moment, just looking at her, and Cordelia gets the strangest feeling—like Buffy is seeing something that no one else ever has, something that Cordelia buried a long, long time ago.

Something real.

Cordelia doesn’t want real. She doesn’t want to be known, not really, especially not by Buffy Summers. She can control what people see when they look at Cordelia Chase, Queen C of Sunnydale, California.

She’s not even close to controlling what Buffy sees when she looks at just Cordelia.

“Buffy, should we… what are we doing here?” she asks, standing on her own again, pulling away from Buffy.

“We’re having fun,” Buffy says, equal measures concerned and confused. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Cordelia sighs with relief. Fun, she can do. As long as that’s all this is, she’s safe. 

It shouldn’t hurt at all, then, that fun is all Buffy wants from her. It doesn’t hurt, she reminds herself. Firmly.

And then she kisses Buffy again, and maybe it shouldn’t feel this good to kiss the girl you spent three years convincing yourself you didn’t want to kiss, but it does.

It feels sort of like fate, of the less-supernatural variety.

Even though her life in Sunnydale is ending, Cordelia lets whatever this is with Buffy begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took forever, had the classic multichapter-work experience of uploading the beginning and then immediately having so much else to do + having a crisis over whether anything in this chapter is actually good
> 
> basically, just that meme that's like "started making it, had a breakdown. bon appetit"
> 
> anyways hope you at least somewhat enjoyed this chapter! kudos + comments are always appreciated and i'd love to hear any thoughts you have on this so far!


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